Itchy fingers.
Plans run amok through my mind.
Welcome to my journal! It echoes my thoughts and feelings as I journey through life. I hope you connect with what you read. If you enjoy this journal, please subscribe.
I’ve been sick this week. I’m still sick. The waxing and waning clarity in this journal will certainly reflect that. A head-cold always seems to make me stupider.
Though I still worked my au pair job in the mornings and evenings this week, I skipped my langauge classes and stayed at home, trying to rest. I probably haven’t lain in bed as much I should have, and certainly less than my girlfriend prescribed. I wanted to, or at least I knew that I should, but while staying at home there were always things that stole my attention. I gave into the self-imposed pressure of obscure chores, like cutting my hair and vacuuming my relatively clean room. I embarked on some unavoidable tasks, like pulling on my warmest jacket and taking the tram to my nearest bookshop to pick up a present for my girlfriend’s mom (it’s her birthday this weekend). On the first day I stayed home, I didn’t sleep much. I lay down for fifteen minutes, the daylight only partially dimmed by my thin, burgundy curtains. I waited, with closed eyes, for sleep to envelope me. Whether impatience or boredom stirred me first, I cannot say. Instead, I sat at my desk and sketched or watched movies that I was half-interested in and ate too much chocolate. Sleeping when I’m sick is such a chore. It isn’t like sleeping late on a Saturday morning, ignoring the dappled sun shining through the window and waking, periodically, to the noises of family or friends busying themselves around me. It isn’t luxurious. It’s medicine.
Lying in bed, I got these pictures in my mind, of things I can make and how I can make them. I know that my girlfriend uses Pinterest to collect fashion ideas and create holiday moodboards; I use it to fuel my ceaseless thinking. I look at ceramic cups and travel chessboards made of leather, and bespoke, handmade, wooden furniture. I look at the shapes of the cups and think about how I would make them. I think about how my fingers would have to shape the clay, scraping and pushing and moulding. I don’t have access to a pottery wheel, how would I go about making the cups without one? What tools would I need? In my imaginary workshop, I sit in front of the clay and form it. I inspect my process for flaws. A cup too thin would be too difficult to shape with my hands. Too thick, and it wouldn’t be pleasant to drink out of. I crush the clay and begin again. I make the cup a hundred times in my mind, each time considering how to better turn the thought into an object. I create a list of criteria that I believe will lead to a successful outcome. Before the clay ever gets under my nails, I know what I want the cup to be. These are the places my mind runs to when my body is trying to rest. When I actually got my hands on black ceramic clay, it was softer than I was expecting. When I rolled it out, it stuck to the surface of the table and instead producing a thin, even piece of clay to work with, as it had in my mind, the clay tore away in patches and clumps. The two cups I did make—which have yet to be fired and glazed—are a blend of my idealistic plans and the unpredictable, real-world application of them.
I’m making a leather wallet at the moment, and I’m running into the same cup problem. I’m not the perfect planner (which is rather a shock to my ego), and gap between the pictures in my head and the skill I have in my hands grows larger the more I plan. this week, when I should have been snoozing, I sat at my desk and drew out plans for how I’d like to make the wallet. It should be slim and attractive, and have space for cards, cash and coins. The cards should be organised in a way that takes up as little space as possible, but I also want them to be easy to identify and use. I’ve made my task difficult, but difficult is also more fun if you manage to get it right. The idea has been haunting me for a while. While I dry the dishes, I think about the wallet. When I sit on the train, I think about the wallet. All my ideas take up too much space. The (imaginary) final product is too bulky, too clumsy. This week was the first time I started sketching my ideas out. I thought I might sit there for an hour before I made myself lie down. Hours later, I was surrounded by half-lucid sketches, paper and cardboard cuttings and disused tape. I made a prototype from craft supplies, which is my standard procedure, but the prototype doesn’t look all that convincing. My plans either need to be refined, or I need to ditch them.
Really, I don’t need flexibility in my hobbies. I need it in my life. I need to learn how to let go of the plans I make for weekends away and for games nights and for family holidays, not for leatherwork. My plans, no matter how well thought out, no matter how much fun it is for me to work on them alone in my mind, are not perfect. Life is like the clay, sticky and little different than expected. The cups I make, if I don’t get too lost along the way, can still be beautiful. Hopefully the wallet I eventually figure out will be, too.
I’m off to rest as much as I can before the birthday party! If you enjoyed this journal (bless you if you did, it’s a bit of a mess), please send it to someone you love. (Better yet, send them your favourite one instead!)
That wallet is gonna look mighty fine one day.